Hi, I’m Rick Sessinghaus. I find it fascinating when I’m working with athletes and executives who want to perform at a higher level, and then when they start to get there and achieve those goals, they get scared. We put in all this hard work. We have all this intention that we want to get better, and then as we get closer to it, we start backing away. Self-sabotage.
Overcome your fear
We get scared. And so what I want you to think about is what is your association with your outcome, or with your goals? I know in the sport’s psychology community, performance psychology, it’s been kind of downplayed or don’t think about the outcome. It’s only about the process. I’ll tell you right now it’s about the outcome. The outcome will then dictate what the process is.
Your Association with Success
When I’m working with these high achievers, I have found that that outcome, if it’s not aligned with their belief systems and who they are, gets in the way. And now they can’t do the process anymore. So we have to understand, what is your association with success? What’s your association with achievement? Is it about being scared and fearful and I don’t know if I’m really that good? Or is it embracing it and going, “Man, this feels great and I can’t wait to take this challenge to the next level and the next level.”
Just your association of how you view success will determine at what level you’re gonna go. Golf mental games are such. There’s plenty of skills that we can train you, but now, when it matters most, and the pressure is on, how are you viewing that? Are you viewing it as something that is exciting? “I can’t wait to do this! I can’t wait to see how I show up and challenge myself!” Or is it, “Uh-oh. I’m scared. I may not be good enough.” And then we backtrack.
The last thing on this, though, is that I’ve had people associate success as a negative thing. “Well, Rick, if I do achieve that, now what?” And I go, “Great! Isn’t it?” And he goes, “Yeah, but then other people are gonna expect that from me all the time.” And I may go, “Okay!” So now they’re jumping so far ahead of the goal that they self-sabotage it because, “Oh my gosh, people are gonna expect that.” And I go, “Well, that’s a new level for you, isn’t it?”
So I want you to look at success and what do you associate with that? Are they positive emotions that go with that? Excitement in the challenge and embracing it? Or is it fear-based? “I’m scared. Uh-oh, I don’t know if I’m good enough.” Or, “When I get there, uh-oh, people are gonna expect different things from me.” Because that could be blocking you from being able to get to a higher level. And you can put away that barrier, and start to associate that success is something that is gonna bring the most out of you, then you will become a master of the golf mental game.
FlowCode Golf Academy / Start with golf mental game training / Learn more about golf mental game coaching
FlowCode® Golf Academy has been created with the intention to share the latest know how and secrets from top professional golf players on how to achieve the state of flow in the game of golf in effective and straightforward way. FlowCode® Golf Academy offers the same proven success formula that has helped athletes to anyone motivated to live like a champion. FlowCode Golf is a framework of golf mental game strategies, principles and techniques that take us from fear to the state of flow, the state of optimal performance, the zone where we play our best golf.